Since when did it become a socially acceptable practice – even socially desirable – to queue for bread?

We’re not talking the five-hour bread lines synonymous with Soviet history. Rather, it’s a balmy 18 degrees in Sydney’s hipster heart of Surry Hills and people have descended to procure their fresh-baked loaf, possibly rye and a smattering of caraway seeds.

This seemingly unstoppable desire for something more than just the usual sliced white loaf is pushing national bread sales towards the $3.1 billion a year mark. It is also what supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, and to a lesser extent IGA, are tapping into through “in-store bakeries".

Market research company
IBISWorld
estimates that over the past year artisanal bread consumption has been the fastest growing industry sector, up 15 per cent compared with wholemeal and seeded bread, which is growing at just under 5 per cent, and white bread, which is increasing in line with the population.

Consumer shift

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“You can see a huge consumer shift towards higher-quality, locally baked styles of bread," senior analyst
Emily Witham
said, noting it is no surprise, given those statistics, that the retailers are promoting their in-house bakeries.

Supermarkets account for about 67 per cent of total bread sales. Artisanal bread, IBISWorld said, is a $2.6 billion niche market and rising, particularly as more people buy from specialised bakeries.

Bourke Street Bakery founder Paul Allam said the interest in what they do has grown steadily since it opened in 2004 with two bakers (he and David McGuinness), a barista and a counterhand. “The retailers have been trying to copy the marketing and aesthetic of artisanal bakers for a few years now, replicating their in-store bakeries to look warm and rustic," he said.

It doesn’t affect his business, which caters to a different group of customers.

Return to corner store bakeries

“I think that’s a good thing," he said. “Fifty years ago there were probably a lot more corner-store bakeries like us, so it’s a return to that, but also evolving what’s sold."

He said television cooking shows have helped change food culture away from being an elitist exercise.

This, in turn, makes people comfortable to seek out good produce, including bread.

Coles online sells their baked in store goods starting at $1.50 for a small baguette to $4.00 for a stone-baked kalamata olive batard, and the same price for a multigrain sourdough cob.

Bourke Street Bakery sells its sourdough loaves for $5.50 and its broader range, including soy and linseed and wholemeal sourdough loaves for $6.00.

Sonoma, the popular Sydney bakery that now supplies a growing number of retail ventures and restaurants sells it’s general loaf range at $7.00, with it’s 1.6 kilogram ‘ Miche’ retailing at $14.